


that being said...

by doctorkaitlyn



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Community: bfukinkmeme, Complicated Relationships, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:05:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14014857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: “You know what the worst part of working with Ryan is?” Zack asks. His cheeks are faintly pink, but Shane doesn’t know if it’s an actual flush or if it’s from the weird ambient lighting overhead.“The fact you always have to look down on him? Maybe we should all pitch together and buy him a box. Like, an apple crate or something.”“Nah, man. It’s hisvoice.”(or, in which a drunken confession sets off an unexpected chain of events that culminates in Ryan's bedroom.)





	that being said...

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the following prompt from the [BFU Kinkmeme](https://bfukinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/972.html) over on Dreamwidth: _Prompt: Ryan/Shane and-or Ryan/Zack, voice kink. Ryan whips out the theory voice in the bedroom for comedic effect, and it quickly becomes a Thing(tm)._ I kinda veered away from the prompt a little bit (and hopefully the and-or part meant full on poly was a-ok), but hopefully it's still enjoyable! 
> 
> also, [Ella](http://archiveofourown.org/users/elasticella) definitely encouraged me to write this and put up with me complaining about it being so damn long, so this one is for her!

Shane’s never really noticed, but Thursdays at the dive bar just down the block from Buzzfeed headquarters (or, rather the glammed up hipster place that _tries_ to be a dive bar but is way too clean and shiny to be anywhere close to authentic) are actually fairly quiet.

Normally, Thursdays are the day where a whole bunch of them, anywhere from six to ten people depending on how many of them are swamped with work, go out to grab some drinks to celebrate the week almost being done. With that many people packed into a booth or crowded around a table, it usually ends up being such a total cacophony of overlapping conversations and raucous laughter that Shane can hardly _think_ , let alone pay attention to what’s happening in the rest of the bar.

But this Thursday is an exception. Of the eight people who had originally planned on coming along, six bailed, citing other plans or too much work or, in one case, the flu. Even Ryan had passed, saying that he needed to do some research for the upcoming season of True Crime. Shane had tried to talk him out of it, said that the research would be there tomorrow, that he could pawn it off on someone else (because what was the point of having people transferred to the Unsolved team if Ryan wouldn’t let them do any work?), but to no avail. 

Which left just Shane and Zack.

Which isn’t a bad thing. They haven’t hung out a lot one on one, but Shane’s liked Zack since he’d showed up to work on their first day as interns fifteen minutes late, in jeans with the knees torn out, visibly hungover and still smarter than most people Shane has ever met. Even though working for Buzzfeed can definitely be stressful, Shane doesn’t think that he’s ever seen Zack get worked up about anything that didn’t somehow involve sports (or, usually, Ryan talking about sports); he’s almost ludicrously chill, to the point where Shane had once assumed it was because he was just high all the time.

(Turns out that’s only the case roughly sixty percent of the time.)

The more they drink, the freer Zack laughs, and the more he moves into Shane’s space. There was no point in them taking up an entire booth, so they’re perched on two stools at the bar. They’d started out facing the bar and turning their heads to talk to each other, but now, they’re facing each other head-on. Zack’s knee is pressing into the side of Shane’s, and he’s slumped forward a bit, even though Shane can’t imagine it's very comfortable for his back. Their elbows are both resting on the bar, and every so often, Shane finds himself transfixed by the mere _inches_ keeping them apart. It’s not that Zack is a distant person; he’s as free with his affections as he is with his laugh, is always tossing an arm around someone’s shoulders or slapping them on the back, but they’ve never been _this_ close.

Shane isn’t entirely certain how many drinks he’s had. He only has a distinct memory of three, but three drinks would _not_ make his head feel so pleasantly fuzzy, wouldn’t make it so easy for him to grin every time Zack makes a joke or some kind of stupid pun. He’s right in the sweet spot, where the world isn’t spinning but everything feels so _easy_.

Eventually, and unsurprisingly, their conversation turns towards their common middle ground, towards Ryan. Shane makes an idle comment about Ryan being married to his work, which leads to Zack pulling his phone out and shooting off a text from both of them that says, _buddy, you suck and we miss you_. Once the message is sent, Zack puts his phone facedown on the bar beside his half-full bottle of beer and leans forward even further, until it looks like he might just slide right off his stool and into Shane’s lap.

(Shane suspects that he should probably be more concerned about that possibility than he actually is.)

Their elbows touch and, for a few moments, Shane is so overwhelmingly aware of the fact that Zack’s arm is pressed up against his, that they’re skin to skin, that he nearly misses Zack’s next words.

“You know what the worst part of working with Ryan is?” he asks. His cheeks are faintly pink, but Shane doesn’t know if it’s an actual flush or if it’s from the weird ambient lighting overhead.

(They _really_ need to find a new place to drink in, convenience of the location be damned.)

“The fact you always have to look down on him?” Shane quips, unable to stop himself from grinning. “Maybe we should all pitch together and buy him a box. Like, an apple crate or something.” Zack bursts out laughing and drops his head down to his chest, low enough that Shane can see the back of his head and the nape of his neck. Once he’s recovered, he shakes his head and leans in closer, close enough for Shane to be sure that he’s _definitely_ blushing, that it isn’t just a trick of the light. 

“Nah, man. It’s his _voice_.”

Shane freezes in the middle of reaching for his beer.

Zack’s right. Much like how he’s liked Zack from the first moment they met, Shane’s had a _thing_ for Ryan’s ridiculous theory voice since the first time he heard it, back before Unsolved was even a thing, when they were hanging out after work and Ryan just wanted to get Shane’s feedback on some notes he had. It’s easy enough to ignore when they’re out on the road, when he’s distracted by bugs or swooping bats or a cold, dank room, but when they’re on the set, when Ryan is mere inches away from him and the worst distraction is the crew, it’s absolutely _unbearable_.

But, despite Zack’s still present flush, he doesn’t want to make any assumptions, doesn’t want to presume that they’re both in the same boat when it comes to Ryan.

(If that boat had a name, it would probably be _hopelessly head over heels_ , Shane thinks.) 

So instead, he forces out a laugh and stalls for time by taking a sip of his beer.

“Yeah, he lays it on pretty thick sometimes, doesn’t he?” he says once he’s swallowed. He doesn’t even get the full sentence out of his mouth before Zack starts shaking his head vigorously. His hand drops on top of Shane’s heavily, curls around where Shane’s fingers are still grasping his bottle, and even though Shane is interested in what is about to come out of Zack’s mouth, he can’t help but stare at how well their hands fit together, like they’ve been doing it for ages.

“That’s not what I meant.” Zack slides to the edge of his stool, and his knee slides up as well, until it’s pressed into the outside of Shane’s thigh. There’s a light dusting of blonde stubble along Zack’s jaw and around his mouth that looks like it would bristle against Shane’s fingers, and he raises a hand to check exactly that. Zack shudders when Shane traces one finger down the line of his jaw. “How do you deal with it all the time?”

Shane laughs ruefully and slides even closer. 

“Honestly? Not very well.”

He’s not sure which of them leans in first, but when their mouths brush together, Zack shudders again and reaches out to twist his fingers into the front of Shane’s shirt. Vaguely, Shane is aware of Zack’s phone vibrating near his elbow, like he’s getting a text, but he doesn’t pay it much mind. 

He has more important things to focus on at the moment. Namely, getting Zack somewhere private where he can make him shudder over and over again.

&.

When he wakes up in the morning, his head is throbbing horribly, like he smashed it off a wall.

Slowly, he cracks open one eye and immediately shuts it again. Forgetting to draw the curtains when he got home was a terrible decision, because now his bedroom is flooded with obnoxiously bright sunlight. After taking a moment to prepare himself sufficiently, he tries again, and this time, he manages to keep both eyes open, albeit at a squint.

How in the _fuck_ is he supposed to go to work like this?

Slowly sitting up, he glances over at the other side of the bed. Zack is still asleep, face half-turned into the pillow. The bare line of his shoulders and the side of his throat are marked up, and although Shane doesn’t exactly remember leaving most of those marks behind (everything after leaving the bar is kind of a blur of sensations and sounds, rather than actual memories), he doesn’t regret a single one.

Before he can get too distracted by Zack, his phone starts vibrating on his nightstand. He assumes that it’s his alarm, but when he flips it over, he realizes that Ryan is trying to FaceTime him for some goddamn reason, and he automatically answers while he finds his glasses.

“Ry, what the hell do you _want_?” he groans once the call connects and Ryan appears on his screen, lying on his side in bed.

“I wanted to show you a storyboard for Unsolved that I did last night.” His voice is rough and deep from sleep, and while it’s not quite the same as his theory voice, it’s similar enough to prompt Shane to recall the exact conversation that led to him not being alone in his bed.

By the time Shane realizes that maybe now isn’t the best time for Ryan to see into his bedroom, it’s too late.

“Holy fuck, there’s a dude in your bed.”

On cue, Zack groans loudly, raises his head from the pillow, and blinks blearily. After a moment of glancing around, presumably to try and determine where Ryan’s voice is coming from, he locks in on Shane’s phone and flips it off.

“What the _fuck_ , Ryan?” he mumbles, dropping his face back into the pillow and groaning again.

“Uh. Hey, man,” Ryan replies. It’s not his most eloquent of moments, but seeing as how Shane can barely think straight, let alone speak coherently, he’s not judging. Instead, he grabs a hoodie off the floor and zips it up as he walks out to the kitchen.

“You made a storyboard instead of coming out with us?” he asks, burying a yawn into his elbow as he starts digging through his cupboard for two clean mugs. “That’s sad, buddy, even for you.”

“Whatever. I think that it’s some of my best work,” Ryan retorts. He’s still lying in bed, glasses halfway down his nose, hair soft across his forehead, and he looks so painfully good that Shane almost can’t bear to look at him. “Look, I know it isn’t any of my business, but I gotta ask. How long has _that_ been happening for?”

“You mean Zack?” After Ryan nods, Shane glances over at the clock on the microwave, which is displaying a time fully half an hour before his alarm is supposed to go off. “Ten hours? Give or take a few minutes.”

“Huh,” Ryan says. His voice is still so thick with sleep that the only emotion Shane can detect in it is exhaustion. He doesn’t have a response, so he settles for leaning back against the counter and cursing his pounding head while he waits for Ryan to show him the oh-so-important storyboard that apparently took up his night.

He doesn’t.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you guys both at work,” he says instead. 

By the time Shane opens his mouth to answer, Ryan has already hung up.

Shane stares down at the black screen of his phone for a few moments, totally and absolutely bewildered, before he shakes his head, decides to say fuck it to making coffee and trudges back the hallway, resetting his alarm for 8:30. When he pushes the door open, Zack opens one eye and yawns expansively but doesn’t make any effort to move from the bed.

“So Ryan knows,” he says as Shane drops back onto the mattress and yanks his pillow over his head so that he doesn’t have to look at the sunlight.

“He sure does,” Shane answers. How Ryan _feels_ about it, Shane really doesn’t know; his _huh_ hadn’t exactly revealed much.

“Alright. Cool,” Zack replies before he slides closer and loosely drapes his arm over Shane’s chest. “I’m gonna need to borrow some clothes. But I need more sleep first.”

Shane intends on going back over Ryan’s reaction a few more times, just to see if he can unravel some kind of meaning from it, but between the exhaustion weighing him down and the oddly comforting warmth of Zack’s body next to his, he ends up passing out again almost immediately.

&.

Amazingly, they’re only ten minutes late to work.

Zack’s desk is on the other side of the office, so once they’ve both made coffee in the kitchen and talked to Jen for a few minutes, they have to go their separate ways. It feels almost wrong to split without talking about the night in some way, but Shane still isn’t awake enough, nor is it the right environment, for such a serious conversation.

Thankfully, Zack doesn’t push him. He just leans up, presses a quick kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth, and says, “We can talk later,” before he heads down the hallway and out of sight.

Shane feels the kiss linger on his skin for the entire time it takes him to walk to his own desk.

He’s just started going through his new emails when Ryan comes stumbling in, looking thoroughly disheveled, hair shoved under a baseball hat, dark stubble covering his jaw. 

“What happened to you?” Shane asks as Ryan drops into his chair. Ryan just shakes his head.

“Don’t even ask. It’s been a fucking weird morning, man.”

“Yeah,” Shane answers, glancing in the general direction of Zack’s desk, even though there’s a number of walls between them. “You can say that again.”

&.

Every aspect of the whole situation should be weird.

It should be weird that him and Zack don’t sit down and talk things through, don’t try to figure out whether what they’re doing is going to be a continual series of hook-ups or if something more. When they meet up for lunch the day after Shane wakes up with Zack in his bed, Zack simply asks _are you good with this?_ and waves a hand between them, and Shane answers _yes_ without a second thought.

It’s enough, even though it shouldn’t be.

It should be weird that Ryan doesn’t shy away from them now that they’re dating (or fucking, or whatever). If anything, he seems to be _more_ willing to hang out with them now, accepts every invitation that either of them extends, whether it’s for a movie night at one of their apartments or lunch together or drinks after work. He doesn’t comment on their relationship, but a few times, Shane unmistakably catches Ryan’s eyes on them, feels his gaze when Shane absently kisses Zack’s cheek or nudges their shoulders together.

It’s not a gaze rooted in any kind of negative emotion, like annoyance or disgust; Shane has been on the receiving end of those from Ryan enough to know _exactly_ what they feel like when they burn into the side of his neck. But aside from ruling those emotions out, he doesn’t know what the gaze means. What he does know is that having Ryan around so often, especially given the circumstances that brought Zack and Shane together, should feel like _someone_ is getting third wheeled every time they hang out together.

That doesn't happen.

It should be weird that, even when Ryan isn’t around physically, even when it’s just Shane and Zack, he’s always in the back of Shane’s mind, lingering like some kind of ghost.

(And Shane _hates_ that that’s the first simile his brain goes to. Ryan has officially ruined his life.) 

It should _definitely_ be weird that Shane is totally not phased when he gets a text from Zack one day, while Shane is working on editing Ruining History and Ryan and Zack are filming Sports Conspiracies on the bar set, that reads _SOS man, he’s killing me today. it’s even worse than usual_.

In response, Shane sends back _want some help with that?_

Once Zack has responded with a simple _please_ , Shane pushes away from his desk and starts making his way to their normal spot, to an out of the way bathroom in the depths of the building that never seems to be used by anyone else.

It should be weird that the best way Shane knows how to help Zack involves sinking to his knees in a cramped cubicle and listening as Zack tells him exactly _how_ Ryan has been killing him, tells him that they’ve done four different takes and Ryan’s theory voice has been deeper on each one, tells him that Ryan is the fucking _worst_ and comes down Shane’s throat with a gasp.

Two days later, when they’re filming the first new episode of True Crime for the upcoming season, Shane ends up having to take a timeout so that Zack can return the favor.

It should all be weird.

But the only thing that’s weird is that none of it is.

&.

Two months after they first hookup, after one of his planned guests for the next episode of Ruining History has to drop out due to a conflict with another project, Shane asks Zack to take their place. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” Zack answers with a lazy grin. He’s stretched out on Shane’s couch, head resting squarely in Shane’s lap, and he sits up just long enough to kiss the base of Shane’s neck. “When do you need me?”

Filming is scheduled for the next day. Sara and Ryan are in their usual spots, and based on the way they keep whispering and giggling together, he suspects that his oh-so-carefully crafted show is going to be derailed by alien nonsense again. Zack is on his immediate left, followed by Jen, and just before they start, Zack drops a hand onto his shoulder and leans over so that he can talk directly into Shane’s ear.

“Thanks for inviting me,” he says. “For real.” He sounds almost ludicrously sincere, so much so that it knocks Shane completely off kilter.

“No problem.” The cameras aren’t rolling yet, so he decides to be a little bold, twists his head and drops a kiss to the back of Zack’s hand.

Right on cue, he feels Ryan’s gaze burning into the side of his neck.

They get into the show a few minutes later, and for the first fifteen minutes, things progress about as well as they normally do. Shane bungles a few lines from his script so badly that all of them dissolve into raucous laughter. After one particularly ridiculous fuck-up, Jen laughs so hard she knocks her coffee straight into her lap, which necessitates a ten minute break while she grabs some new clothes from the wardrobe department. When she comes back, they re-shoot the introduction, and Shane manages to make it into the real meat of his spiel before Ryan butts in.

“You know, I’m not super enthralled by this,” he says, waving a hand in Shane’s general direction and grinning smugly. “I don’t think you’re doing it right.”

“I’m with him,” Sara says, which isn't surprising; Shane’s about ninety percent sure that her and Ryan have actual structured meetings about just how they can make him miserable every time they film a new episode. “I think this needs some pepper on it. Some spice.”

“I promise you, this is gonna get plenty spicy,” Shane retorts but, on a whim, he gathers up his notes and flicks them over in Ryan’s direction. “But let’s see if you can do it better. See if you can spice it up any.” 

“Fine,” Ryan answers, grabbing Shane’s notes and neatly stacking them. He spends a few seconds looking them over, making exaggerated _hmm_ sounds, before he leans back in his chair, one arm casually tucked behind his head, and clears his throat.

“The year is 64 AD, and Rome is literally in flames...”

Ryan is in full-on theory voice, and Shane’s throat immediately goes dry. His cheeks flare with burning heat, and beside him, Zack chokes on his drink.

He should have expected this, really, but hindsight is 20/20, and now, he’s pretty sure that the Ruining History set is going to be on the same level as the Unsolved office and the Postmortem library.

It’s like Ryan is actively trying to make the number of places he can go without thinking of his stupid voice smaller and smaller.

By the time he manages to get his act together and snatches his notes from Ryan’s hands, Ryan has already read the entire first paragraph of his spiel, and Sara is giggling with delight.

“That wasn’t spicy either!” Jen exclaims with a shake of her head. “That was too smooth. Like really expensive whiskey or something.”

“I am very clearly the smoothest one here,” Zack says, totally deadpan, which causes everyone else to dissolve into more laughter and gives Shane some additional time to get his shit together.

Thankfully, the rest of the day passes by relatively uneventfully, and they wrap up in the early afternoon. Zack comes over later that night, and without saying a thing, Shane knows that he’s still thinking about it, knows that the _voice_ is the forefront thing on both of their minds.

They barely make it into the living room before their clothes start hitting the floor.

Afterwards, once they’ve managed to get partially dressed again and are sprawled out on the couch, backs against opposite armrests, legs tangled together in the middle, Zack clears his throat as he digs a joint out of the pocket of his jeans.

“What do you think he’d do if we told him?” he asks, looking at Shane with a raised eyebrow as he sticks the joint in his mouth. 

Shane genuinely doesn’t know. 

But he’s starting to think that maybe, if only for their own sanity, if only so working with Ryan doesn’t become absolutely fucking unbearable, they _should_ tell him, consequences be damned.

He genuinely intends on spending some time thinking about how best to raise the issue, because it’s not like there’s a handy how-to guide for _how to tell your best friend that both you and your sort-of boyfriend have a thing for his voice (and all of him, but particularly the voice) without it blowing up in your fucking faces_ , but then work takes over; balancing Ruining History and Unsolved and all the other projects that he keeps getting roped into takes up almost all of his time. Even though Ryan’s voice still has the same effect on him, there simply isn’t the time to think about how exactly they should talk to him about it, or _if_ they should bring it up, if they should maybe just let it be a thing for the foreseeable future.

Maybe, if they both just ignore the problem long enough, it’ll go away eventually.

(Shane suspects not, but it’s not nearly as far-fetched a possibility as some of the theories Ryan brings to Unsolved with absolute sincerity.)

In the end, he never gets a chance to plan out the conversation.

Two weeks after the disastrous episode of Ruining History, Ryan finds out all on his own.

&.

They’re having a movie night at Ryan’s place after a week that has left Shane totally exhausted. It’s nearing midnight, and they’re on their third movie, but he’s barely paying attention; mainly, he’s just been enjoying not having to _think_ for once.

They’ve all been drinking fairly steadily for the last few hours, and Shane’s head is pleasantly foggy. Even though Ryan has a quite comfortable armchair, the three of them are crowded together on the couch; Zack is pressed against Shane’s side, a firm line of heat, and on his other side, Ryan is sitting close enough to Zack that their knees are touching.

“The narration is really killing this for me,” Zack says, waving his beer bottle at the television for emphasis. “It’s distracting.”

“Yeah, I’m not feeling it either,” Shane adds although, truthfully, until Zack brought it up, he hadn’t really noticed that the movie _had_ narration. 

“He just doesn’t have the right voice for it,” Ryan replies. That’s the only warning they have before he slips smoothly into theory voice and starts speaking over the narrator, dubbing the lines without even having to look over at the subtitles.

Shane coughs into the mouth of his beer bottle and hopes that it’s impossible to tell in the dim room that his face is on fire.

Zack’s reaction is considerably less subtle. 

“ _C’mon_ man,” he groans unsteadily, sliding even closer to Shane, until he’s practically sitting in his lap. “Don’t do this to me right now.” 

“Why?” Ryan’s drank enough to be cockier than usual, and with a grin, he pulls his legs up onto the couch and turns to face them on his knees. Dropping one hand on the back of the couch, just behind Zack’s head, he leans forward until he’s hovering over Zack, mere inches away from his face, and continues, still grinning and still in theory voice, “Do you like it?”

Zack is even less subtle this time. He full-on _moans_ , and even though he’s staring up into Ryan’s face, frozen like a deer in headlights, his hand drops to Shane’s knee and squeezes tightly, a silent plea for help.

Shane feels frozen too, breathless with anticipation as he waits for Ryan to stop fucking around and break the tension, waits for things to go back to normal so that he can head out with Zack and go work through their mutual frustration together.

But the laugh that he expects to burst from Ryan’s mouth never comes. Instead, his eyes slowly widen as they flick from Shane to Zack and back again, and his mouth drops open with recognition.

“Oh,” he says quietly, leaning in a little further. “Holy shit. _Both_ of you?”

Shane isn’t exactly a good liar at the best of times, and now that the cat has been let out of the bag, he doesn’t think there’s any point in trying to cover his own ass, so he just nods and clenches his fingers around his beer, keeps his eyes averted on where Ryan’s fingers are tightly curled around the back of the couch. 

“Yeah,” Zack answers, huffing out a nervous, unsteady laugh as he tightens his fingers on Shane’s knee. “Like, a lot.”

For a long time, Ryan doesn’t speak. When Shane tentatively glances up, Ryan’s expression is frustratingly hard to read. If Shane had to put a label on it, it would be gobsmacked, maybe, but whether it’s in a good or bad way, he doesn’t know.

Eventually, Ryan clears his throat and gets to his feet.

“Holy fuck,” he mutters before he shoves one hand through his hair, abruptly turns around and walks down the hallway towards his bedroom. Shane expects at any moment to hear the door slam, but while the sound never comes, Ryan also doesn’t come back.

“Huh,” Zack says, sounding and looking absolutely _dazed_ , and Shane can’t say that he blames him. “Should we… I don’t know. Should we leave?”

Before Shane can answer him, the sound of Ryan clearing his throat drifts down the hallway.

The next sound that drifts down is his voice.

“Both of you. Get down here. _Now_.”

It shouldn’t be hot, at all; this is the same voice Ryan uses when he reads quotes from literal serial killers, the same voice he uses to describe absolutely horrible, graphic things, the same voice he uses to outline the most batshit theories Shane has ever heard.

But that doesn’t stop Shane from swallowing heavily and glancing over at Zack, who is staring at the hallway, beer raised halfway to his mouth.

“I think we should listen to him,” he says, setting his drink back onto the coffee table. Shane nods and mirrors the action, anticipation (and mild terror) fluttering through what feels like every nerve in his body.

“Yeah,” he agrees, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to haul Zack up. “I think you’re right.”

&.

Ryan’s bed is way too small for the three of them.

Even in the aftermath, when the three of them are panting desperately for breath and gleaming with sweat, they have to stay tangled together out of necessity so that one of them doesn’t straight up fall off the fucking bed. Zack is sprawled on his stomach, precariously balanced on one edge of the mattress, while Shane is on the other, and Ryan is in between them, one arm thrown over his eyes, chest rising and falling, legs thoroughly twisted together with both of theirs.

“I can’t believe you didn’t fucking tell me that sooner,” he mutters, absently reaching out and dropping his other hand onto Zack’s back. “We could have been doing this _months_ ago.”

“How were we supposed to know that?” Zack mumbles, the words almost buried in the pillow his face is shoved into. “Why didn’t you tell _us_?”

“He’s right,” Shane says. Simply because he can, because this apparently is something he can actually _do_ now, he shuffles over slightly and drops a kiss on Ryan’s elbow.

“I didn’t know how to fucking say it,” Ryan retorts. “How are you supposed to tell your best friends, who are dating each other-”

“Sort of dating each other,” Zack interrupts.

“-that you like them both?” Ryan finishes. “I didn’t want to make things weird.”

“How were _we_ supposed to tell you without it being weird?” Shane replies. “Like, ‘hey, we hooked up because we discovered we both have a thing for your voice, surprise?’”

“Wait, what?” Ryan pulls his arm away from his eyes and glances back and forth between them. “Holy shit, _that’s_ why you two hooked up in the first place?”

“Maybe this would have happened sooner if you weren’t too busy doing a storyboard to come out with us,” Zack says, shaking his head disapprovingly. 

“Whatever,” Ryan mutters. “Do you two even _like_ each other?”

“Yeah,” Shane says without a hint of hesitation. He may not know what he actually has with Zack, but he does know that he doesn’t regret a single moment that they've spent together over the last two months.

“We just really like you too,” Zack chimes in, slowly flipping over onto his side so that he’s actually facing them. “Are you cool with that?”

“I will be,” Ryan answers and, for a moment, Shane’s stomach fucking _plummets_ to the floor. “Once we’ve made up for all the time we missed out on.” 

Shane may be tired, but he’s pretty sure he has enough energy left for at least one more round.

“Maybe if you ask nicely,” he says, propping himself up on his elbow. On the other side of the bed, Zack leans in and starts pressing slow, lazy kisses up the side of Ryan’s neck, and Ryan’s breath hitches. He remains quiet for a minute, one hand slowly running through Zack’s disheveled hair, eyes closed, before he turns to face Shane (and gives Zack even easier access to his neck in the process).

“Kiss me.”

It’s more of a demand than a question, but seeing as Ryan says it in _the_ voice, Shane is willing to give him a pass.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~who do I have to bribe in order to get Zack as a guest on Ruining History.~~
> 
>  
> 
> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
